Lost Snake Nighmare.....

[Chris72]

Friends...We need your help.

N.B. To those who may wish to judge or insult myself or my wife...please move on. Your comments are not welcome here.

So my wife was so happy to see Faro happy, healthy and properly humid when we came back from Flordia last week that she stayed up watching TV on Friday night with him...and...fell alseep. She woke up at 4am and poof...no ball paython to be found!!

Here are the details:

Faro: Oct 2012 male B.P., 25inches, very full and healthy, very curious, April 10th ate two rat pups, April 17th ate 1 rat pup.

The house: Small split level with very few places to look, cold laundyroom with crawl space that is so cold it is not comfotable on my bare feet. ONE of the registers upstairs has a routered wooden cover with openings such that he could get into the vent system if he wanted.

Note: I examining every single nook and crany of the house I see marks in the vent of a high D/S bathroom register that clearly look like he arrived there, looked around and turned around. (foot prints in dust if you will)

What we are doing so far:
** Looking everywhere and under / in everything as often as we can.

**Cleared out closets and placed hides, and shallow water dishes with aquarium sand in the bottom so we can tell if he was in there for a bath. Also, hides and water all over the house.

** Have flour down across every hard floor so we can see if he is moving around.

**Have picked up 4 live feeder rats (rats strink!!). During the day the rats live in the tub of the bathroom where I belive he has visited via the high wall vent. large heated blanket on the floor of this room.

** By night I put the rats into two little plastic reptile carriers (6x3) with fully vented tops and I have put holes along all corners for added smell disbursment. (Rats are kept well fed and watered during the day) In the evening these two totes are placed one on each level, on 3foot x 3foot foil surrounded by flour.

** the house is kept at 80 to 85 degrees and I have put a hole in the laundry room exchange so to heat the lower part of the house a little more.

**Twice daily I have been running a screaming hot shower with the doors open to increase %RH.

** I have rigged a towel from the high bathroom register with his "foot prints" such that he has a path to travel if he comes back. If he falls from there the fall is well cushioned. I have also hung a mesh bag with paper tissue that stinks of rats 8 inches from that wall register to lure him out.

All of this....and we cannot find, nor get a sence that he is around.

When my iguana got out the odd time I would find her in my guitar bag within 24 hrs. I have never lost a snake so this is new to me and it has been nealry 72 hrs. Last night I sat up listening for something in the vents, or Faro crawling over the tin foil along the walls...until 2am. Nothing.

With the live rats lures and the D/S bathroom stinking of live rats I would have bet he would have been around already.

If I knew where he was in the vents I would cut the wall. Whatever it takes! We have checked all the standard things like couches, everything on the floors, etc. But its like he is just gone.

Help...ideas...ways to improve the lures?

Help?

[smy_749]

Hes probably sitting somewhere dark, close to his escaped cage. DArk takes precedence over warm. Make a snake trap. cut a soda 2 liter bottle, turn it inside out. tape a cloth tube to the nossle, and tape it back on so the nossle is inward. throw a rat in there. goes in , cant find a way out. You can google it and find threads with pics. if hes too big for that, find something bigger.

[Chris72]

Originally Posted by smy_749

Hes probably sitting somewhere dark, close to his escaped cage. DArk takes precedence over warm. Make a snake trap. cut a soda 2 liter bottle, turn it inside out. tape a cloth tube to the nossle, and tape it back on so the nossle is inward. throw a rat in there. goes in , cant find a way out. You can google it and find threads with pics. if hes too big for that, find something bigger.

OK.. I will get two more live rats tonight and build one of those for each floor.

I put his cage on the floor of the room where it normally is, next to a register, with two hides around it.

We keep very little on the floors so there is very few places to hide. Normal feeding day is Wednesday so Im hoping he will start "hunting" soon.

[Mark Taylor]

Be careful leaving live rats as bate. What happens if the rat hurts the snake unsupervised?

[Chris72]

Originally Posted by Mark Taylor

Be careful leaving live rats as bate. What happens if the rat hurts the snake unsupervised?

Great point.

I will use pinkies for the traps. As for the 4 smalls...he has no access to them at anytime. They are simply for scent...bail if you will.

[smy_749]

Originally Posted by Chris72

Great point.

I will use pinkies for the traps. As for the 4 smalls...he has no access to them at anytime. They are simply for scent...bail if you will.

I meant FT, I think a live rat will eat his way through or be smart enough to get out

[Chris72]

Originally Posted by smy_749

I meant FT, I think a live rat will eat his way through or be smart enough to get out

I was thinking small pinkies so Im not tossing F/T rats in the trash daily...but after my last post I realized I dont want to starve pinkies to death either. I'll use F/T for the traps.

The smalls Im using as bait in the clear plastic (vented) enclosured are gobbling up parrot food and hard boiled egg yolks during the days so come night time the just lay there...stinking like rats in the middle of the floured foil. (but the snake cannot accuatlly come in contact with those.

All: Crawl space question - I have that crawl space with the cement floor so cold it is rather uncomfortable on my feet. I have gone on the assumtion that the cement is so cold he would not actually be able to move over it. (like ice on naked skin for us) So we didnt pull eveything out of there. Am I wrong on the temp assumtion?

[Mark Taylor]

Yes imop the snake is lost and looking for a safe, warm place it will do what ever it takes to achieve this. If your snake will eat F/T then why do you feed live?

All you can do is look pull the cooker, fridge out anything that it could get behind chances are it wont be on the floor.

[Chris72]

Originally Posted by Mark Taylor

Yes imop the snake is lost and looking for a safe, warm place...........All you can do is look pull the cooker, fridge out anything that it could get behind chances are it wont be on the floor.

Correct. Lets assume we have the standard ideas covered like checking regularly under and around the stove, fridge, book cases, pillows, closets, shoes, under and around the bed, dressers, etc.

Looking for additional advanced ideas beyond what is stated above. Very interested in ideas on how to lure him out from the ducting system as I think there is a chance he is in there.

[smy_749]

Originally Posted by Mark Taylor

Yes imop the snake is lost and looking for a safe, warm place it will do what ever it takes to achieve this. If your snake will eat F/T then why do you feed live?

All you can do is look pull the cooker, fridge out anything that it could get behind chances are it wont be on the floor.

i disagree, dont limit your search to warm places. dark tight spaces, cold or warm is your target. He will sit in a cold space , its not out of the question

[Mark Taylor]

Not sure if it would work but if you could make it light/bright he may want to look elsewhere?

[Mark Taylor]

Originally Posted by smy_749

i disagree, dont limit your search to warm places. dark tight spaces, cold or warm is your target. He will sit in a cold space , its not out of the question

That's what I was saying lol

[Mark Taylor]

Once it finds a place it will stay there till it needs food or water or more or less light/heat/humidity. It knows how to stay alive, its just weather or not it find what it needs quick enough to survive.

[Terranaut]

I only skimmed the thread (at work) but try up under your couch or othe furniture in the room. Probably not far from where he was lost. He will come out in the black of night if he comes out at all. Good luck.

[Mark Taylor]

^^^^^^^ If it is stressed Imop it would just curl up somewhere close to where he was, now with less adequate husbandry. I really hope you find your snake.